Mail Archives: djgpp/2002/02/18/02:38:34
On Sun, 17 Feb 2002, Charles Sandmann wrote:
> If you are tired of the reboot of
> the hour - and want to be able to run for weeks or months on end without
> rebooting or losing data, XP runs circles around any Win 9x based kernel.
If we are starting a stability contest, then here's another data point:
my Windows 98SE system reports an uptime of 41:21:05:49 (yes, that's
almost 42 days). The previous record was 3 months of uptime, before a
power outage interfered. Power outages are by far the only reason this
system ever goes down.
My other Windows 98 system is tirtured by my kids with all kinds of buggy
games, but it still stays up for many days on end, and is stable enough
for me to use it to read email and news groups.
Evidently, Windows 9X's fragility is greatly exaggerated. It does take a
bit of setup and vigilance, but so does any other OS out there.
It goes without saying that a descendant of the NT family is more stable
than the 9X family. They don't need to maintain compatibility to DOS
and to 16-bit Windows of the 3.X vintage, so they have less problems.
But beyond this simple technical fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns
out that the MS hype about XP stability is largely a marketing gimmick.
In particular, I have no doubt that in a year or so, we will be told by
MS that XP is crap while the next OS, whatever its name will be, is
superb as far as stability goes...
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